D&D General "I have Played in or Run a Campaign Set in the Forgotten Realms" (a poll)

[DammitVictor]

I'm almost always the umpire when I play D&D, and when I've run D&D in the past 15-20 years it's almost always been SJ-based homebrew... or Mario-based homebrew... as those are my favoritest fantasy-type settings. I raid other D&D settings for elements, for concepts and content, but at the end of the day what I actually run is homebrew and it's homebrew whose primary inspirations revolve around a handful of published settings.

 

[Derulbaskul]

True.

1E. 2E. 3E. 3.5E. 4E. 13th Age. 4E again. 5E. Back to 4E. Prepping PF2E.

 

[The Soloist]

Not until the first 5e starter set came out. We played Phandelvin and Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Before that, I bought 2e setting books but used them as a reference to create my own worlds. I also read many FR novels.

 

[grimmgoose]

I'm not interested in running a game in somebody else's setting. It's half the fun for me! So no, I never have, and I likely never will.

 

[Epic Meepo]

You can't effectively use "I'm running in the FR" as a shortcut to a shared understanding with people you haven't gamed with, it's actively misleading.

I agree it's not useful to say, "I'm running in the FR," since the setting covers so much ground. It's probably better to say, "I'm running in the FR, using sources X, Y, and Z." Information in those sources is established fact and everything else as hearsay. That lets you use convenient bits of setting lore (maps or gods, for example) without getting bogged down in every little detail.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wow, these are some amazing stats. I wonder how well they correlate with when people started playing D&D.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Wow, these are some amazing stats. I wonder how well they correlate with when people started playing D&D.

Hmmm, I'm actually surprised by how many people have not played in the FR, since so much of what has been released for 5e takes place in the FR

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmmm, I'm actually surprised by how many people have not played in the FR, since so much of what has been released for 5e takes place in the FR

We have a lot of old coots posting here. Looking at the stats, I'd bet about a quarter of us were playing D&D before the Forgotten Realms was anything more than some articles in Dragon magazine and thus were in no need of a new kitchen sink setting when TSR published it.

 

[Blue]

I agree it's not useful to say, "I'm running in the FR," since the setting covers so much ground. It's probably better to say, "I'm running in the FR, using sources X, Y, and Z." Information in those sources is established fact and everything else as hearsay. That lets you use convenient bits of setting lore (maps or gods, for example) without getting bogged down in every little detail.

Eh. Not really. I started playing in the FR back in the 90s with AD&D 2nd, and have played in every edition since. I have no idea what information is from what source. And since many things, like the nature of the Red Wizards, is established in multiple places, you can't even just discount everything. Or things are from one source, then built on in sources in the next edition, so even if source X isn't listed by a DM, it still contains things that are true, so even sources not listed could not be flagged as "not part of the setting".

Nor, if I was to run FR, could I separate out what I know to what RPG books from what editions, or what novels, did a particular bit come from. It's lore is gigantic.

 

[el-remmen]

Hmmm, I'm actually surprised by how many people have not played in the FR, since so much of what has been released for 5e takes place in the FR

I imagine there is a small but not insignificant percentage of folks who take things set in the FR and re-skin it to work in their homebrew or some other published setting. I know I have/do.